- Hello, I'm David Crabtree.

On this special edition of "State Lines," we're going to talk with Governor Roy Cooper as he wraps up his eighth year as the governor of North Carolina.

- [Announcer] Quality Public Television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.

[triumphant music] ♪ - Governor Cooper, thanks for joining us.

Happy Holidays to you.

It is hard for me to believe as a citizen of this state and as a journalist that you are wrapping up eight years in this office.

Where did the time go?

- Oh, it went by so fast.

I think that's the biggest surprise so far, is how fast those eight years went.

- Well, there's a lot I want to cover in a short amount of time, but I feel like we have to start with where we are post-Helene and what's happening in the western part of the state.

I was just there recently.

Of course, there is some progression of recovery, but the scars are very, very deep.

- Helene is the deadliest and most devastating storm ever to hit North Carolina by far.

We lost 103 souls.

The economics of this looks as if it's close to $54 billion in damage.

And when you compare that to Hurricane Florence, the second largest storm in North Carolina in 2018, that was 17 billion.

So three times the amount.

And particularly when you consider the topography and the challenge of a hurricane hitting the mountains, many places that are difficult to get to on a sunny day before the storm, then that just increases the challenges.

Look, the most important asset we have here is the drive, determination of the people of Western North Carolina to rebuild and recover.

Courageous people who wanna do that.

But the second thing is, is that all of North Carolina and many parts of the country, people have embraced us with... Other governors sending help, federal government sending help, volunteers coming in, people sending money.

It's been extraordinary.

We've made some significant progress, but there's a lot to do.

And there will be years of rebuilding and recovery, which I want it to be in the right way because we need to make sure that our recovery is resilient and smart and ready to withstand future storms that we know are coming.

- One of the things I noticed when I was there, and it was a reminder that oftentimes when there are disasters, traumas, help comes immediately, and then we go away, particularly media.

We cover the story, we leave, and people are left behind to deal with devastation, and the mental health impact of people already is profound there.

- No question.

Long-term recovery is hard.

We've opened almost 900 roads that were closed.

Most people have their power back.

Most people have communications back.

Most people have water back.

We have thousands of people in temporary housing, in hotels, Airbnbs, shelters, and other places.

Schools are back in session.

Many of our businesses in Western North Carolina are back open, and I would tell the people of North Carolina, please go and invest in these places because they need our help now more than ever.

But the long-term challenge of rebuilding the roads, the bridges, the public buildings, the housing, and understanding that many of these are in areas that are very vulnerable, that's a multi-billion dollar challenge that we need to do as quickly as possible, but we need to make sure that we do it in the right way.

And we're gonna need significant federal and state government help because the people of Western North Carolina simply don't have the resources to do it by themselves.

- Now, I'm thinking back over your eight years.

When you mentioned Florence, there was also Matthew.

There have been other storms.

But you came into office fairly quickly with the storm of HB2, then the storm of COVID, while all trying to do the work you wanted to do for education, for industrial development, for economic development.

Talk to us about trying to find, not a balance, but how do you juggle when this comes at you at warp speed 24 hours a day?

- Well, I took office physically in the capitol over there at 12:01 AM on January 1st of 2017, but I also stood amidst the rubble of the broad discriminatory HB2, which has put our economy into shambles.

Businesses were turning away, sporting events, entertainment, film industry pretty packed up and left.

We knew we had that challenge.

We also saw the devastation of storms.

We also faced the historic challenge of a pandemic.

And when you think about the progress we've made, all of the people of North Carolina working together, today since that day, we've added 640,000 great paying jobs.

We are the third fastest-growing state in the country.

We are the place to be to innovate and to grow your business and to thrive.

And we've restored that reputation not only across the country, but across the world.

People have come together to meet all of those challenges.

And when you think about where you want to be, where you want your family to be, where you want your business to be, North Carolina is a place that's always in contention for people across the world.

And that's something for all of us to be proud of.

- You look at the business climate here and being named the top state to do business for two years, then almost a third year.

- And it would've been a third year had they not changed the criteria, because they knew we were gonna be it for the third year under the same criteria.

But that's a minor point, David.

Being number two was okay.

[Roy laughs] - So some of the larger fish that were landed, if you will, VinFast, Toyota, the list is lengthy.

- Well, the good thing is, is that we targeted the kind of businesses we want.

We want better paying jobs for our people.

We knew that the clean energy area was going to be the place that the capital markets were being driven, but we also knew the amazing investments that the Biden-Harris administration was putting into it.

So we took advantage of it.

And when you think about the tens of thousands of jobs that are gonna come from clean energy, that's gonna put money into pockets of everyday North Carolina families.

We've also concentrated on life sciences.

We were smart enough years ago to establish the North Carolina Valley Technology Center and have been ready for that revolution.

Aerospace, tourism, new innovations in agriculture, North Carolina's on top of it.

And I think when you talk with business recruiters across the country and across the world for that matter, they will always put us in contention, particularly when we're talking about one of these seconds.

Heck, we're the second largest banking state in the country.

We're surging in technology.

There's so many good things that are happening here.

Our challenge, our challenge is to meet the demands of an ever-growing state where people wanna come to make sure we are investing in our workforce, investing in our people, investing in their healthcare, investing in our infrastructure.

That's going to be the challenge because getting to the top is great.

Staying on top is harder.

- You talk about clean energy.

Look at House Bill 951.

- [Roy] That's right.

- Bipartisan effort, took a lot of work to get there, but you made it.

How difficult we're the negotiations?

- Yeah, that's one of the hardest things we've done.

But forcing our power sector to get to carbon zero by 2050, to get a 70% reduction in carbon by 2030, it's gonna end up being '31 or '32, but significant progress is being made in renewable energy.

The thing is, we're getting the support from people who understand that climate change is real, that United States, and we want North Carolina to be part of the leaders in the world in making that move.

But even people who don't care that much about climate change understand the economic impact of the capital markets and where the private sector is going in the clean energy arena.

So we were able to pull together people who understand that this is gonna put money in people's pockets, in addition to people who understand the importance of renewable energy to protect our planet.

That's a powerful combination.

And then on top of all of that, with President Biden's leadership, we were poised to get so much federal money in order to help supercharge all of this.

It's gonna be very positive for our state, our country, and the world.

- Numerous times, you and I have had conversations over the years, where up until a year ago, you were frustrated about Medicaid expansion.

You talked about the need.

You couldn't understand why it wasn't being passed.

Finally, you won that battle.

And now a year into it, the numbers of people who have taken advantage of this have exceeded.

Where you thought you'd be in a year, right?

- Absolutely.

And, you know, you would ask me what I've liked about this job.

I'll never forget on December 1st of last year, standing in a Medicare enrollment center and presenting a new health insurance card [indistinct] with tears in her eyes and, admittedly, some tears in mine.

She had fought through cancer and other illnesses without health insurance and had been brave enough to tell her story.

You know, when I took office, I knew that Medicaid expansion was a way to get to my mission.

And my mission, CEO mission for North Carolina was, and has been, making a North Carolina where people are better educated, where they're healthier, where they have more money in their pockets, and they have opportunities to live lives of purpose and abundance.

Everything we've done has been toward achieving those goals.

But a healthier North Carolina means so much to our economy that we knew we needed to have Medicaid expanded.

'Cause so many working North Carolinians were making too much to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough to qualify for subsidies under the Affordable Care Act.

And that gap was causing our economy to hurt and people to hurt.

I went into office, and in a few weeks, the legislature sued me.

Legislative leaders sued me in federal court to stop me from trying to expand Medicaid.

Those same legislative leaders came over to this mansion, and right out there six and a half years later, as I signed the bill that we had asked them to pass.

And we had hoped to get 600,000 people in two years.

Now, we almost have 600,000 in just one year.

It shows the demand for this.

It shows how we can find consensus when we pull together coalitions of people that you wouldn't think would be on the same side.

Healthcare advocates tough on crime republican sheriffs were up here because they had so many people in their jail that they knew needed healthcare and not handcuffs.

That their deputies were having to deal with sitting in emergency rooms with them, they said, "We need Medicaid expansion."

Rural Republican county commissioners were seeing their hospitals close because they had uncompensated care for so many of their patients.

And rural North Carolina has benefited more than any areas of the state from Medicaid expansion.

And we did it without additional state tax dollars.

And it's gonna be great for our economy.

It means you can never, ever give up on things you know are right, because this was blocked because of politics, because it was part of Obamacare, and people didn't want do it.

And 10 states in the United States still haven't done it.

But we've gotten a lot of people from those states to ask us what our blueprint has been and how we did it, and that is the way you do it.

You put together coalitions of people that you wouldn't necessarily think would normally be together to do something that's good for the state.

- It's a great example of how difficult governing is.

- [Roy] For sure.

For sure.

- So six and a half years, was there a specific tipping point that led the opposition to not give in, but to say, "Okay, it's time, let's do this"?

- You know, I think it's some point that, you know, this is...

I would let Republican leaders speak for themselves, but we had numerous conversations about this.

But one of the excuses was, what if this all gets pulled away from us?

What if the federal money gets pulled away from us and we're stuck with this?

Well, number one, it's a good thing to be doing anyway.

I never thought that this was going to be taken away, and I don't think it will be now, but I think there was a realization among Republican leaders that this wasn't going to go away.

It was something the public was demanding.

We were turning down, David, $521 million a month, a month in tax money that we had already paid to Washington that was going to other states.

And I think there was a realization that the economics of this don't make sense.

I think the chances of this going away are pretty low.

We need to just go ahead and do this.

Now, it was still tough to get because I think they wanted something else out of it.

And there's some things that we did in the healthcare arena that they wanted to do, that helped us achieve consensus.

But we got there.

That's what counts.

It's good for North Carolina.

I think it's going to be the working families bill of the decade.

Medicaid expansion in North Carolina.

- Here we are.

We're actually taping this interview on the 12th of December.

We'll air it in a couple of weeks.

I think it's incumbent upon us to just talk about some of your final legislative battles.

And yesterday was one of them.

- [Roy] Yeah.

- What do you think was accomplished yesterday?

- Well, first, I think we put the need for disaster assistance in Western North Carolina front and center.

And it's shameful that the legislature did not respond to help small businesses that are right now making decisions about whether they're going to reopen.

We had a grant program that we used during the pandemic to help small businesses, so it was down to the fine science.

It simply needed to be funded.

It wasn't anything that the federal government was doing, you know?

And there were lots of loan programs that are out there that state and federal government has.

But a lot of these small businesses already had loans that they were paying off.

And they're looking at the devastation and they're thinking about, "Do I give this another go?"

A grant from the state of North Carolina to say, "Yes, you are important," "Yes, we need you," I think that was important and a real missed opportunity.

Secondly, one thing I heard from small businesses out there, and I've been to 15 counties, a number of 'em multiple times, and have been on the ground and talked to so many people.

And it was interesting to hear from conservative business people who had come to the realization of, "I cannot believe our unemployment benefits are so low."

Nobody can survive on $350 a week.

We need greater unemployment benefits for our people, so they'll stay here and not go somewhere else.

So we try to get the legislature to do it.

Ours are some of the lowest unemployment benefits in the country.

I used emergency authority to increase the length of time and the amount to $600 a week to help those employees stay.

Part of this bill yesterday that they overrode took away the authority of the governor into the future to use that emergency authority.

And when new governor, Stein, in March is faced with needing to extend unemployment benefits, because we know that this state of emergency is going to last on throughout the year, he won't be able to do it.

So they took that authority away, which will hurt Western North Carolina, did not send money to the businesses, and instead, they called it as disaster relief bill.

They just simply moved some money around in Raleigh and they used it for a massive power grab instead.

That's shameful.

And I thought that there would be enough Republicans, particularly from Western North Carolina, who would have the gumption to say, "No, no, no."

Unfortunately, it didn't happen.

And, you know, I want to emphasize too is important because that gets a lot of coverage.

Conflicts gets a lot of coverage.

But I work with them on so many things.

Economic, development, clean energy, making sure that we were attracting good jobs, community colleges, infrastructure, high speed internet.

We've worked together on so many things.

We have butted heads on, you know, you gotta stand up for your core values.

They haven't done enough for our public schools.

They haven't done enough yet for this disaster in Western North Carolina.

There's a lot of work for the new governor to do.

I'm always there for him as a resource.

I'm gonna be his constituent.

So, you know, maybe I can go to McDonald's in the morning and just sit around and complain about the government and give him a call from time to time.

'Cause, you know, in my career at public service, I've been to many of those meetings where people sit around and complain about the government.

- [David] Oh yes.

- I've sat in the middle of them and heard them.

I think that's helped me to be a better public servant, actually.

- And it's all experiential.

No matter how prepared you are when you come into the job, something's going to happen that you weren't anticipating.

- Oh, for sure.

- And you're going to go, "What is this?"

I'm sure you had a few of those moments.

- Absolutely.

- You probably still do at times.

- Pandemic being one of them.

That was not on the checklist of challenges.

- Let's talk about a couple of fun things.

- All right.

- North Wilkesboro, the Speedway.

That came about, that brought some new energy into a part of North Carolina history that was all but literally crumbling.

- Yeah.

So NASCAR has been such an important part of North Carolina for the entertainment of it, the old stories about running away from the revenuers and running the liquor and all of that.

- Thunder Road.

- Amazing stories.

But, you know, Rockingham Speedway, North Wilkesboro are places where NASCAR used to run.

They were thriving economic areas and rural parts of our state.

And when I was out amongst people and campaigning, even for Attorney General, I would stop by Wilkesboro, and often we'd visit out there because the people never lost hope of wanting to bring it back.

And after the pandemic came, the recovery money started coming in, we got to thinking.

So what better way than to invest in these rural areas, help bring back these speedways and help our economy recover?

We put a bunch of it in our first proposed budget to the General Assembly.

They didn't buy it.

But we kept coming back and we said, "This is a way to do it."

Finally, the General Assembly said, "This is a good idea."

People in the business got it.

We were able, amazingly... And to see North Wilkesboro come back to life, yes, there was a lot of hard work done, but people in the community came and cut grass and pulled up weeds and painted things and were very much involved in the revival.

And to see the All-Star Race, the NASCAR All-Star Race, come back to North Wilkesboro and seeing the joy on people's faces.

I walked out and I had people come up to me with tears in their eyes.

"My grandfather used to take me here."

"This is just so meaningful."

And I saw the capitalism at work as we were driving up on the day of the race, and there was a front yard that says, "Parking, $10."

And as we got closer to the Speedway, "Parking, $25."

As we got closer, "Parking, $50."

I said, "This is the economy at work."

It was so much fun.

- Only got about a minute left.

- I'm sorry.

- That's okay.

- It was exciting.

- One of the fun work.

Belichick.

- Whew, okay.

I guess I gotta cut the sleeves off of some of my sweatshirts here.

He's gonna get UNC football on SportsCenter almost every night, so that's gonna be good.

I think there's some obvious risks, but we'll have to see how it goes.

- But you'll still say, "Go Heels."

- Absolutely.

Go Heels!

- Always.

- That's right.

- Governor Roy Cooper, finishing your second term as Governor of this state, no matter what the politics of anyone, when you serve in this capacity, it is true public service.

You are owed a debt of gratitude by every one in this state, including myself.

Thank you for your service.

- Well, just let me quickly say, I am deeply grateful for the opportunity that people have given to me, to wake up every morning to lead the state that I love so much.

I'm humbled and honored, and it has been a great ride, no doubt.

I have valued every day, and I'm grateful for the people giving me that chance.

- Thank you, sir.

[triumphant music] ♪ ♪ - [Announcer] Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.